Report: John Singleton to Be Taken off Life Support After Stroke

Update (April 29, 1:08 p.m.): A spokesperson for John Singleton’s family has announced that the filmmaker will be taken off of life support on Monday.

“It is with heavy hearts we announce that our beloved son, father and friend, John Daniel Singleton will be taken off of life support today,” the spokesperson said in a lengthy statement to Deadline. “This was an agonizing decision, one that our family made, over a number of days, with the careful counsel of John’s doctors.”

The statement continues, highlighting Singleton’s extraordinary career and noting that, privately, the filmmaker struggled with hypertension, which affects more than 40 percent of African American men and women. Singleton’s family explicitly urged people to learn more about the symptoms by going to Heart.org, the site for the American Heart Association.

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John Singleton is still on life support, according to his friends and representatives. On Monday, premature reports began circulating, saying that the director—who suffered a stroke on April 17—had died. However, a rep for the Oscar-nominated filmmaker told The Hollywood Reporter that Singleton is “still on life support.“ According to TMZ, Singleton is in a medically induced coma.

Singleton reportedly checked himself into Cedars-Sinai Hospital nearly two weeks ago for leg pain, after which he suffered a stroke. His family released a statement at the time, saying the he was under “great medical care.”

Shortly after his stroke, the director’s mother, Shelia Ward, began the process to become his appointed temporary conservator. Several of Singleton’s children have combatted her efforts, including his 19-year-old daughter Cleopatra Singleton, who disputed Ward’s claims in a court filing and suggested that another family member, such as Singleton’s father or eldest son, become temporary conservator instead. She also wrote a brief description of Singleton’s condition at the time, writing that he “is progressing every day . . . My father is breathing on his own. He is only medically sedated to keep his blood pressure low and allow the vessels in his brain to heal.”

Singleton, per the Times, was set to sign a lucrative settlement agreement around April 30, and was also in the midst of several business deals. On the directing and producing front, he also has the upcoming third season of his FX series Snowfall, which began filming in February.

“We are sad to learn the news of John’s condition, but we know he's a fighter,” FX said in a previous statement to T.H.R. “The thoughts and prayers of everyone at FX and his Snowfall family are with him and we are hopeful for a complete and speedy recovery.”

When John Singleton first approached Ice Cube to be in a movie, the rapper didn’t take him seriously. But soon the novice actor, along with Cuba Gooding Jr., Laurence Fishburne, and Angela Bassett, realized Singleton’s script about South-Central Los Angeles was unlike anything that had come before it. A quarter century later, the cast and crew talk about making the revolutionary film.